 | |
| Author | Sarmila Bose |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | History |
| Publisher | Columbia University Press |
Publication date | 1 April, 2011 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (hardback and paperback) |
| Pages | 288 |
| ISBN | 978-1-84904-049-5 |
Dead Reckoning: Memories of the 1971 Bangladesh War is a controversial book on the Bangladesh Liberation War written by Sarmila Bose. [1]
Bose aims for a revisionist reconstruction of the Bangladesh Liberation War in a chronological fashion using material evidence as well as public memory. [2] This was to counter the prevailing multitude of poor and partisan scholarship on the issue, and Bose claimed that hers will be a unique work for years. [2] [3] [4]
She notes the war to have had its origins in a xenophobic and communal expressions of Bengali nationalism. [5] Military operations by Pakistani Army were mostly political reprisals and started in response to provocations by Mujib's movement which engaged in violence despite Yahya Khan's efforts to restore democracy. [5] [6] In the process, Bose also seeks to prove that the death-count portrayed by Bangladesh is often unreliable and aimed at distorting the truth about the nature and number of war-crimes. [2]
Martin Woollacott, the foreign correspondent of The Guardian , found it to be a long-overdue study which exonerated the Pakistani Government of planning to rule Bangladesh (East Pakistan) by force and stood to provoke "fresh research and fresh thinking". [7]
Arnold Zeitlin, a journalist who had covered the '71 war, argued the monograph to be a "distortion of history" that carried the author's prejudices and had an idiosyncratic emphasis upon getting an accurate number of casualties, whilst refusing to tackle the underlying themes and issues surrounding the event. [8] [9]
Atul Mishra, an assistant professor in international relations at the Central University of Gujarat, reviewing for Contemporary South Asia, found the work to be "soundly conceptualized and professional", and an ideal read for doctoral students. [10]
Afiya Shehrbano Zia, a Pakistani feminist researcher, writer and activist based in Karachi, gave a reception for this book [11]
Brig. (R) Dr. Raashid Wali Janjua, a retired Pakistan Army officer and Director of Research & Analysis at IPRI, wrote a review in The Express Tribune, criticizing the casualty numbers and addressing various myths surrounding the topic. [12]
Chaity Das, reviewing over Journal of South Asian Development, found the book to be an exercise in "glossy revisionism"; failing to see beyond the number of casualties, Bose engaged in an opportunistic and inconsistent pitting of memory against memory to discredit the narratives of victims and exonerate the Pakistan Army. [13]
Gita Sahgal, writing for The Daily Star, expressed similar concerns; lacking in any theoretical or political framework and engaging in a selective usage of sources, Bose only served to adulate the Pakistan Military. Several issues — Jamaat-e-Islami, Al-Badr etc. — that would have proved inconvenient for her central thesis, were skipped. [14]
Urvashi Butalia, a feminist historian of memory, reviewing for Tehelka , noted the work to be spoiled by her "hubris and irrational biases"; Bose exonerated Pakistani officers of mass-rape and wanton violence by taking their accounts as "straightforward" truth but labeled all Bangladeshi accounts as "claims". [3]
Nayanika Mookherjee, a social anthropologist studying memories of '71 wartime rapes, found the book to be methodologically inconsistent, informed by a disdain for Bangladeshi Self Determination — to Bose, Bangladeshis were guided by blind hate against the "fine men" of Pakistan army who had "no ethnic bias" and they either exhibited "bestial" violence or were "cowards". [15] She also criticizes Bose for failing to cite post-nationalist scholarship in vernacular, which discussed the role of Bengali Muslims in killing Bihari/non-Bengali collaborators and communities. [15]
Bose has responded to Naeem Mohaiemen and others in The Economic and Political Weekly. [16] She maintains that her research is unbiased and the critics were only "those who [had] profited for so long from mythologizing the history of 1971." [2] [16]
